The ability to collect and analyze driving data and driving behaviors associated with vehicles and drivers has many valuable applications, for example, relating to vehicle and driver insurance, vehicle financing, product safety and marketing, government and law enforcement, and various other applications in other industries. For example, an insurance company may offer a safe driving discount, and a financial institution may offer financing incentives to customers based on driving behavior. Law enforcement or governmental personnel may collect and analyze driving data to identify dangerous driving roads or times, detect moving violations and other unsafe driving behaviors. In other cases, driving data may be used for navigation applications, vehicle tracking and monitoring applications, and vehicle maintenance applications, product sales and targeting advertisement applications, among others.
Vehicle-based computer systems, such as on-board diagnostics (OBD) systems and telematics devices, may be used in automobiles and other vehicles, and may be capable of collecting various driving data. For example, OBD systems may receive information from the vehicle's on-board computers and sensors in order to monitor a wide variety of information relating to the vehicle systems, such as engine RPM, emissions control, vehicle speed, throttle position, acceleration and braking rates, use of driver controls, etc. Vehicles may also include Global Positioning System (GPS) receivers and devices installed within or operating at the vehicle configured to collect vehicle location and time data. Such vehicle-based systems may be capable of collecting driving data which may be used to perform various driving data analyses such as statistical driving evaluations, driver score calculations, etc. However, not all vehicles are equipped with systems capable of collecting, analyzing, and communicating driving data. Moreover, a single vehicle may be used by multiple different drivers, and conversely, a single driver may drive multiple different vehicles. Thus, driving data collected by a vehicle-based system might not completely and accurately reflect a driver's driving behavior.
In contrast to vehicle-based systems, mobile devices such as smartphones, personal digital assistants, tablet computers, and the like, are often carried and/or operated by a single user. Some mobile devices may include one or more movement sensors, such as an accelerometer, gyroscope, speedometer, and/or GPS receivers, capable of detecting movement.